tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post1129801011872016485..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Was Obama Too "Hands Off"?Jonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-41715922913355675502010-03-10T21:00:18.533-06:002010-03-10T21:00:18.533-06:00Matt --
Again, I suspect that we'll find out ...Matt --<br /><br />Again, I suspect that we'll find out that the White House was very involved in cutting the deals with Holy Joe and the Benator -- but that they did it in such a way that Reid, and not Obama, took the fall from it. Of course, that's a guess, at this point...I do agree that they didn't seem to hurry things as much as they should have, even apart from Scott Brown.<br /><br />ASP,<br /><br />I haven't had a chance to read the Packer piece yet, but I can pass along that Nyhan didn't love it:<br /><br />http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2010/03/hack-narratives-on-obamas-decline.html<br /><br />On the larger point...maybe. Just keep in mind that it's always easy to second-guess, but we often assume that the things that went right had to go right, and that's not always the case.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-8897516467670955512010-03-10T20:52:21.821-06:002010-03-10T20:52:21.821-06:00Jonathan, in this week's New Yorker George Pac...Jonathan, in this week's New Yorker George Packer made a perhaps more substantive case regarding the ways and times in which Obama may have been too passive in this process. I think Obama did shape the bills to his priorities very effectively, but as he himself has suggested, he may have focused too exclusively on policy results and neglected the sales job, which includes exerting the right kinds of pressures on various blocs within his own party.Andrew Sprunghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17601269968798865106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-76105523449911085942010-03-10T15:20:30.435-06:002010-03-10T15:20:30.435-06:00Rothenburg is simply wrong, as near as I can tell....Rothenburg is simply wrong, as near as I can tell. For a piece of MAJOR legislation like this, the House and Senate bills are actually remarkably similar. <br />However, this is where I think the White House could have played a bigger role. Namely, once the bill was in the "hey, I'm the 60th vote, give me something!" stage (ie, Lieberman, Nelson, etc all trying to hint they needed to be bought off), the White House should have been in there to head those guys off. The 60th vote guys were doing that BECAUSE they knew it would pass; I think that's where the White House could have come in and made deals to put a bow on it and gotten that thing passed in early December/late November, and with much less squabbling over those silly little thingsMatt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.com